Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Allison popped up in my newsfeed again.

Each time is a jolt, a reminder of an irregular mole that consumed a dynamic woman. Her death on Christmas Day left a young boy motherless and a husband bereft.

For a while, I struggled with how people lived on in the virtual space of Facebook despite their deaths in the real world. A reminder to say hi to Cliff or wish Mom Jill happy birthday delivered a gut punch. What kind of cruel joke was Facebook playing on its users?

Facebook eventually realized the problem and shared the company’s policy of memorializing profiles of users. This still allows people to write on the walls but takes them out of the public search.

But I’ve come to appreciate these unexpected reminders. I think about Allison, who I couldn’t dislike even though my high school crush asked her to the senior prom. She was kind and funny, astute and engaged, the kind of girl in high school that I would love to be friends with as an adult. Even though we hadn't talked in years, her death shook me. And I will always be in debt to her mother, an English teacher during my junior year, who wrote in the margins of a sample college essay that even if I lived into my then-plans to become a medical doctor, I must always make space for writing, for feeding my soul with words.

There’s Cliff, who preached three or four sermons every time he took the pulpit. His commitment to The Episcopal Church meant he served interim post after interim, long into his retirement, helping congregations small and large in their transitions. Mom Jill, bless her heart, was the house mother of my sorority, and opened her door and heart to mentor girls as they became women. And there’s Ron, a giant of a man whose passion for journalism taught me new ways to ask questions and tell stories.

Each year the church celebrates the feast day of All Saints. We name and pray for each person from our congregation who died over the past year. It is an important time of remembering and celebrating, of offering gratitude for time and gifts shared.

In a weird, 21st-century way, Facebook reminds me at unexpected times to give thanks for the people in my life, both the living and the dead. I know God works in mysterious ways. I just didn’t anticipate Facebook being one of them.